I have ten brothers and sisters in my family and each has his or her own unique set of talents and treasures ranging from being a producer at CNN to an attorney with multiple offices throughout the greater Columbia, SC area.

Two of those gifted sisters of mine work for CNN. Therese is based in Atlanta and Fran works for CNN out of New York.

Therese considers herself a chubby, small town girl who just happened to make her name in the big media world. I consider her to be one my sweetest, most loving siblings. She is enormously talented, evidenced by the fact that she recently won an Emmy for News and Documentary "Episodic" Promotion for Christiane Amanpour's documentary series God's Warriors. It is the first time an Emmy has been given in this category.

God's Warriors was an investigation into fundamentalism in the three monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Therese was the Senior Producer on the project.

Always modest and unassuming, getting information out of little sister about her terrific accomplishment was like pulling hen's teeth. "I'm not much into naval gazing," she recently quipped to me. "I'm still a little stunned by the whole thing."

Therese and Fran were part of the Emmy Awards Ceremony Emmy's held in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York on December 2nd. Among her competition for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honor was ABC and PBS, which featured Ken Burn's series on World War II.

"The whole experience was surreal," said little sister. "I have known for some time about the nomination but I never imagined that we might win. It's hard to put into words. There we were in New York with people from 60 Minutes, ABC, Dan Rather and others. These were people I grew up watching on television. They are people I admire and respect. It was overwhelming because here I was competing among this group of extraordinary people….and to think they decided our work was the best!"

Perhaps her biggest thrill was to gaze out into the audience into the eyes of her baby sister, Fran, who lives in New York and accompanied Therese to the event. "She was grinning like a Cheshire cat!" exclaimed Therese.

Other nominees in the category in which she won were CNN (Planet in Peril), ABC (Bob Woodruff Reports: To Iraq and Back), PBS (Ken Burns' The War: When) and PBS (Ken Burns' The War: If Only). Not too shabby a crowd in which to compete.

The challenges for Therese's team were numerous. First, they had to communicate the complex focus of the series in very short promotional messages. Next, they had to equally and accurately portray all three religions, while keeping Christiane Amanpour front and center for the viewer.

God's Warriors is a three part primetime television event focusing on the fight of religious extremists for political power in Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Bold and cinematic theme music combined with beautiful and symbolically rich imagery was used to create the breadth and depth of the important documentary.

"I was so proud standing on the stage in New York," said Therese. "A lot of it is a blur, but what I distinctly remember was looking out and seeing Fran and thinking about how proud mama and daddy would be if they could be there. In that one single moment, I was proud of my whole family."

We lost our mother on August 15, 1984, my 35th birthday, and our father passed away in the late nineties over the Christmas holiday. They weren't physically there in New York to celebrate little sister's tremendous accomplishment, but they were gazing down from a higher place, proud as they could be of the wonderful accomplishment of one of their offspring.